Using Reforms Already Failed and Abandoned in
AR Sch. District in the 90's.

Fayetteville is in
the process of implementing an educational system that is just a new round of
the ever evolving controversial Outcome Based Education (OBE) trend a few years
ago. OBE proponents advocate:

No competition

No grade levels

No grades

No time limits

New types of tests (Portfolios)

No textbooks

No
memorization or drills

No Carnegie Units

Hands-On
Fun Projects

The school
administrators plan to build a $113 Million building to accommodate their new
educational plans. In their words, "In December 2008, the board voted to set a
target size for a new high school of 3,000 students in grades 9-12, to be contingent uponthe
curriculum and architectural design being centered around a 21st
century learning model and small learning community concepts."
http://www.fayar.net/community/fhsfaq.html#rogerssdale1
For these new reforms in Fayetteville administrators' own words, see the
bullet points at the end of the article "Building 21st Century Learning System"
at this link:
http://www.fayar.net:80/community/p21cbuilding21csystem.html

These reforms
that Fayetteville plans to implement are the type of reforms that the US
stimulus money is funding and encouraging despite the fact that they have
failed over and over across the country. In fact, another school district in
Northeast Arkansas (Paragould) had a painful failure with 21st century
learning in the early 1990's.

This district
received all kinds of awards, accolades, grant money, and were frequently
featured in newspaper articles for their innovative non-traditional methods as
one of a "handful" of such schools in the nation. However, their test scores
began to plummet. About three years after the plan was in place, the
community became involved, and sponsored town meetings exposing what was going
on in the schools.

Students gave
presentations at one of the community meetings detailing the problems with the
methods used in the schools. (See excerpts from these students' speeches in # 8
of documentation below.) Both the superintendent and principal resigned when
the community became aware that their school test scores, once among the highest
in the county, dropped tothe lowest in the county. The next
year,the newly hired superintendent and school board began returning
the school to basics.

Details are given
below, and the major newspaper stories and are given as footnotes in the article
below. This story is typical of many other experiments in Arkansas and across
the country. Below are the details, an article worth reading for anyone
interested in educational reforms and for anyone interested in the way our taxes
are being spent and will be spent through the stimulus money.

In 1996 Supt. &
Principal Resign As Test Scores Drop to Lowest In The County

In 1997 New
Superintendent and School Board Move School Back to Basics

Students Detail
Problems With Teaching Techniques

Northeast Arkansas Failed Experiment

With School of the 21st Century

Paragould, Arkansas School Becomes School of the 21st Century

There is another school district in Northeast Arkansas (the Northeast Arkansas
School District in Paragould, Arkansas) that implemented reforms in the early
90's very similar to Fayetteville school district's plan. In fact, in 1995 the
superintendent, Lee Vent was invited to go to Washington D.C. to speak on his
school's experiences, " in developing its School of the 21st Century."
Superintendent Vent is quoted as saying, "I spoke on how the School of the
21st Century came in being, the steps that went in to implementing it, where
we're at now and where we plan to go with it." 1

School Begins To Receive Awards in 1993

In
1993 this school district's high school, Ridgecrest High School began to
receive great honors for their innovative programs. Jonesboro Sun
reported in April, 1993, that "Ridgecrest High School in Paragould has become
one of a handful of school districts across the United States working with an
educational reform consortium on a project to 'Break the Mold' of today's
outdated education system. . . RHS [Ridgecrest High School of the Northeast
Arkansas School District ] is now one of only 21 school districts in the entire
nation participating in the Break the Mold program. Northeast Arkansas School
district Supt. Lee Vent said he was "ecstatic." Three Northeast Arkansas papers
carried stories about these events. 2.

The
paper reported Vent as saying, "the Northeast district has been a forerunner of
many educational changes-such as the district becoming a School of the 21st
Century and was ready for the Break the Mold program...Vent said the
basic tenants of the way teaching takes place in schools is in the process of
being changed."

The
article went on to say that the roots of the program lie with Hillary Rodham
Clinton and the National Alliance for Restructuring Education and the Economy.
"Literature from the alliance states it was organized "to redesign and
rebuild all of the important features of the education system and the way in
which that system relates to the health and other human services systems that
vitally affect the development of children and youth in our system."

The
article further states, "The Break the Mold program involves developing
non-traditional innovative programs and methods of teaching and sharing the
information among pilot schools. An example would be offering classes during
non-traditional times [block scheduling] such as Texarkana's proposal for a
12 month school year. (Obama is now calling for longer school days, etc.)

"Vent
said one of the greatest advantages of the Break the Mold and Diamond
School programs [Diamond School designation is another so called honor and
is part of the School of the 21st Century] is that it frees the district
from the constraints of most regulations and bureaucracy."

The
test scores for Ridgecrest High School in the Northeast Arkansas School
District, began to drop almost immediately and soon fell to the lowest scores in
the county. However, the school district and the high school principal,
continued to receive accolades and awards. The principal, John Shewmaker,
received a $25,000 Milken Foundation award. The Daily Press newspaper story
October, 1995 headline read, "Milken Foundation selects Ridgecrest principal as
a top educator in the US." "Gene Wilhoit, director of the Arkansas Department
of Education, paid Shewmaker a surprise visit during a morning assembly in the
Ridgecrest High School and presented the principal with the award."
3

The Northeast Arkansas School Districts in April 1995 also received the 1995
Pinnacle Award from "The American School Board Journal magazine and its
sister publication, The Executive Educator."

Another Jonesboro headline in March, 1996 read, "Ridgecrest keeps winning
honors." "The latest award RHS was being selected by Redbook magazine as one of
'America's Best High Schools.'" These awards kept coming despite the low
achievement scores for the high school. (More about the low scores later.)

Community Meetings As Test Scores Drop & Methods Revealed

People in the community began to wake up as the scores dropped; and complaints
came from teachers, parents, and students themselves. There were several
community meetings discussing the methods being used in their school. The
Northeast Arkansas Tribune in May, 1995, used this headline for article
"Sparks fly at local COE meeting, Educators, parents verbally spar over goals of
controversial program." Some of the students even gave presentations about
the ineffectiveness of methods being used.

Following is a list from the previous newspaper article of some of the methods
to which the community objected. 4

Cooperative learning [a process I
which students are grouped together to work out problems and teach each other]
Another name for this is group learning or collaborative learning.

Changing the schedule into large
blocks of time on some days with totally different schedules other days.
[called block scheduling]

Lumping several subjects together
and having teachers team teach subjects.

Having teachers undergo extensive
retraining.

Changing the teacher's role from
deliver of information to coach.

Having students keep a portfolio of
exhibitions or projects which would be the means of evaluation.

Changing the school calendar by
adding six weeks to the school year and extending the hours from 8a.m. to 4
p.m. (This one was never implemented but was listed as a goal by the coalition
at the root of the reforms and referred to in a newspaper article.)

Shewmaker, the high school principal, was quoted as saying, "RHS [Ridgefield
High School] scores on standardized test – which DeClerk had pointed to as
evidence achievement declines as reforms take over – are down and will go down
again, but he argued students at his school gain more valuable skills. "
4

Supt. & Principal Resign As Test Scores Drop to Lowest In The County and

The controversy escalated as the Ridgecrest scores, once among the highest in
the county, dropped to thelowest in the county; and in February,
1996, Ridgecrest Principal John Shewmaker resigned - only about six months
after receiving his prestigious Milken award, and without having another job
position. 5

In May of same year the Superintendent resigned with three years left on his
contract.

The community
believed both these administrators were forced out because of the low test
scores and the controversy in the community. With so much acclaim, why else
would these administrators leave such prestigious positions? They both came
to the school in 1990-91 and both left in 1996. Actions taken to return to
traditional education (see more on this later) is also proof that these
administrators' actions weren't pleasing to the Board.
6

New Superintendent and School Board Move School Back to Basics

On December 16, 1997 the Jonesboro Sun reported that the new
superintendent, "Tom Kimbrell reported to the Paragould Board, 'We're pleased
that we're moving in the right direction, but we're not satisfied.' Low test
scores in several areas sent up red flags in the district a few years ago."

"Director Dr. John Honeycutt noted that with the change in administration last
year, the district has undergone a 'philosophical change of back to the basics.
Honeycutt added, 'For the last 10 years or so we've gotten out of the
mainstream…we need to get back into the mainstream'…Honeycutt noted that "in the
past we've been too quick to embrace a new program." 7

(This part is not in sequence but I wanted to give the
main details first.)

At one of the community meetings, three students gave presentations about the
problems they encountered with the innovative teaching techniques. The two
biggest problems the students, teachers, and community complained about
consistently were the cooperative learning, block scheduling, and
multiculturalism.

One student said in reference to an American History class, "She put us in
groups, and we tried to learn, and we would get graded in groups; we wouldn't
get graded as individuals. She would write down one grade for all of us, and we
would all get that one grade. I guess it was hard to learn like that because
she didn't teach us herself. She let us find the answers, and sometimes they
weren't right or wrong. In Algebra II we did our homework in groups. We just
went around with people who we knew and just did our homework with them. The
teacher didn't seem t teach all that much.

Another student said about cooperative learning, "I am the one that cares about
my grade so I do the work; the rest sit back and talk and they get my grade. I
took the work home one Friday night and worked on it all weekend and made a 100
on it, and four other people shared my 100. The others that don't do the work;
it doesn't do anything for them, but they sit back and have some fun and they
get a good grade."

In answer to the question, "What was the teacher control like in group
learning?" one student said, "You are usually goofing off….About once a week she
[teacher] would lecture and that usually would get out of control too. All you
would do is talk. She wouldn't get us under control at all….I am sure the other
classrooms around us could hear us talking, even me; I was waving at other
people across the room too, but I mean there is no control."

This student also talked about block scheduling. "There is also the 80-minute
block courses. It is an eighty minute course, that is, you know, that takes
half as much time to complete a year. You usually get in groups." This
student mentioned how hard this schedule was on the normal student because there
was so much material to process at one time. This student, who was an A student
said he goofed around during the group time and did his homework at home.

Outcome based learning was another topic this student discussed. He said, "Then
they have a couple of one hundred sixty minute courses…they had algebra and
physical science combined. You stayed in that class the whole one hundred and
sixty minutes. ..They had those tests that if you made bad on them the first
time, you take it over and if you don't like your grade that time, you can take
it over again. My best friend was in that. She really liked it. She raised
her grades from a C to an A, and she said the tests were exactly the same. They
didn't change the questions or anything." [But what does she do while the
students are working on the next segment of work, or does the entire class hold
up until the slowest learners pass the test?]

One student addressed the multi-culturalism aspect. She said, "I think that as
a Christian we need to know what the occult teaches, but we don't need to know
that more than we know about our own religion. The same thing is true about our
country. We need to be taught more American history than we are taught say
something of another country; but at Ridgecrest that is stressed - a lot of
multiculturalism."

On the subject of portfolios, one of the students said, "The teacher told us
they would follow us the rest of our lives. She said, 'What you put in this
will stay with you even after you graduate. My teacher told us what was going
to be included in the portfolios. Do your best."

In answer to a question, "How would you feel if you knew portfolios were going
to do away with grades and just use portfolios," another student answered. " I
would say, Lord, help us. It's a bunch of garbage"!

Fayetteville, as well as other school districts and the state, would do well to
heed this warning and experience in the Northeast Arkansas School District in
Paragould, Arkansas in the 1990's. 8